If things aren't bad enough, now this:
Can things get any worse? Actually, yes. Trump could get involve.
The current spread of riots is being compared to the riots following Martin Luther King's assassination in 1968. That year Nixon won the presidency much on a law and order theme. Will Trump's reaction help him keep the White House?
It will be one week this coming Monday that George Floyd became news. The visual has burned into my brain. It hurts my heart.
ReplyDeleteIt is now almost 3 a.m. on Sunday morning as I write this on May 31st.
I will be attending Sunday services today at 10 a.m. today. We will have conversation circles to discuss George Floyd and the events surrounding.
At 4 p.m. I will go to a Black Lives Matter vigil.
So first I will talk and then I will march.
But most importan of all for me I will then take action.....
by supporting a man I have known since 1971. Former WXYZ -TV Channel 7 Detroit, Michigan news reporter Bill Proctor. Retired and now a private investigator and a Ray Gray supporter.
Bill Proctor is hopeful an affidavit signed in September 2019 will set Ray Gray free.
https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/after-almost-50-years-behind-bars-detroit-artist-ray-gray-hopes-his-prison-nightmare-will-soon-come-to-an-end/Content?oid=23711848
"African-American prisoners who were convicted of murder are about 50 percent more likely to be innocent than other convicted murderers and spend longer in prison before exoneration, according to a report released today that’s co-edited by a Michigan State University College of Law professor."
https://research.msu.edu/innocent-african-americans-more-likely-to-be-wrongfully-convicted/
Thank you for your comments, Alice.
DeleteThe killing of George Floyd was indeed a needless tragedy, as was the death of Eric Garner and other such mess-ups by the police. Floyd's crime, the attempted passing of a counterfeit $20 bill, was such a minor thing which should not have prompted such aggression by the police as to lead to his death. One would think police would have taken a lesson from past such circumstances and show restraint. However, I understand that qualifications for becoming a policeman have been reduced considerably since it has recently become difficult to recruit qualified policemen. I do believe though that the public response to this killing does not help the situation, as it apparently did not do so in Baltimore and other such localities. The destruction and looting of property is in itself criminal, and should be prosecuted to the extent possible. Besides, it apparently is not at all helpful in preventing such future situations. For some, it appears to be only an opportunity to destructively vent anger and to take advantage of the possibility of looting.
ReplyDeleteThe first but necessary step out of a trap of one’s own making is to recognize it for what it is. Racial categorization is just such a trap. Race is a concept created by self-identified “white” folks in an effort to address universal human anxieties, along with a healthy dose of guilt, and imposed on others without their input or consent. It was a way of avoiding the guilt of exploiting other societies and cultures for economic gain starting in the 17th century, and that guilt has yet to be acknowledged, let alone confronted. Prior to that time (and in much of the world still today), people typically assumed the superiority of their culture, not their race. But after that time, the concept retained such force of reality that, “white” folks could produce postcards of themselves dressed in their finest and happily celebrating beneath the limp body of a fellow human being who had just had the life choked out of him for their afternoon’s entertainment. “Wish you were here . . .” Most people of all persuasions today are repulsed by that stark image but inured to the countless other abuses resting in unconscious racial assumptions. (Indeed, recalling the history lynchings as entertainment makes the endless replaying of the video of one pour man’s murder disturbing at a whole new depth.)
ReplyDeleteSadly, given little choice in the matter, “blacks” and other minorities accepted these racial designations, these products of the human imagination, and became black, brown, or whatever the powers that be among those “white” Americans and Europeans with their superior weapons and rapacious appetites told them they were, thus reinforcing the very fiction used to rationalize their exploitation and mistreatment in the first place. We all inevitably perpetuate the fiction, abuser and abused alike, for as the Chicago sociologist W. I. Thomas said: “If people believe something to be real, it is real in its consequences.” And few consequences of the human imagination have been more real than those of racialization.
Absent these consequences, the reality is that there’s no such thing as a biological race and never has been. Check the genes of a randomly selected sample of any so-called racial group and compare them with any other such group and you will find as much variation within groups as between them. Or take skin color, the single most commonly accepted marker for race, and line people up from darkest to lightest and you will be forced to arbitrarily pick a point where black ends and white begins. Then watch the people around that point start to jostle and move to the other side of the divide because they have been “wrongly” categorized. The point is that race is not a biological given and is not the source of some irrevocable difference between social groups. Perpetuation of a belief in the certainty of racial categories is an act of “bad faith” that harms both the oppressor and the oppressed, the victim and the victimizer. Of course, it’s hardly fair or realistic to expect someone to call on such a subtle sociological argument when they’re having the life choked out of them, but if at some point we as a society expect to create a better more just place to live, we may want to ask ourselves whether and how we might stop perpetuating a fiction that continues to produce such horrific consequences.
I wonder if this is as much of a white/black thing as we are making it out to be. I heard yesterday (on Democracy Now ?) that black citizens are as afraid and as critical of black policemen as they are of white. Also, I think there are two categories of protesters: those who genuinely hope to make a statement as to police brutality, and those who only want to take advantage of the opportunity to loot and to cause destruction. I doubt that any of these demonstrations will produce the desired result of achieving the goal of less brutal treatment by the policy. I can attest to protesting in DC against the Iraq war a couple times, with absolutely no good result. But in this case, the media hardly covered it, not like the present situation.
ReplyDeleteIt must be nice to be able sit on your sofa in comfortable Columbia, MD and not have to worry about if one of your male relatives who went out today will actually make it back home. As a black woman, and not a white one, I don't have the luxury of being able to live in that comfort. There have been several instances in my life that have occurred when I wasn't sure if I was going to make it home after an encounter with either white people or law enforcement.
ReplyDeleteThis country was founded on violence and racism. Both are in our DNA and our blood. The native peoples were nearly exterminated. It was written into the constitution that black people were not to count as full citizens. The entire system of slavery and Jim Crow afterwards was maintained using a system of extreme institutional violence and yes, terrorism, against black people.
I recommended a video on You-tube by Trevor Noah. If you want to really understand the situation, you should see it. If you have seen it and still can't understand, then I cannot help you and I don't think anyone else can either. This is the original sin of America, its mental illness. It is a white American problem. I can say that because I have lived in other countries and I know that no white group of people is more afflicted with it than Americans.
All I can say is that thank God there are young people of all colors that are out there in the streets all over this country who understand the issues and are taking a stand against injustice. And not just in this country, but around the world, most notably in London, England. Just like the country looks crazy to the world having Trump for a president, it looks crazy with its response to an execution carried out by an instrument of government filmed live.
People in this country praise the people of Hong Kong for their protest against Chinese tyranny even when they end up destroying their subways, shopping centers, and universities. They are "freedon fighters." Well, guess what folks, those kids out there in the streets now are freedom fighters also. You don't honestly think it was just non-violence that got us civil rights, do you? If you do, stop reading fairy tales and get your ostrich head out of the sand.
Jacquie, you’re right, it’s impossible to feel the pressures that blacks feel without being black. Years ago I read a book by Grace Halsell, “Black Like Me,” in which she was able to pass for black, and found so much insidious discrimination.
ReplyDeleteI did watch the Trevor Noah video, and was surprised at the discrimination effects he still feels.
I still believe though that destruction and looting are not the answer. At least it hasn’t worked in other situations, UNLESS the powers-that-be allow it to work. If they come to the conclusion that it is in their best interest to support this, it will work; otherwise no. Sometimes public opinion (with the cooperation of the media) will allow justice to prevail. Unless and until that happens, the people who have the real power will continue to call the shots. The situation in HongKong will hinge on enough public opinion going against China, and it will have to be a preponderance of opinion in order to thwart China’s power. Another case in point (which I continually hark back to) is in Palestine. The human rights violations there are so blatant, esp. in Gaza, and yet the powers which control the media (esp. in the US) are so pro-Israel that there is nothing the Palestinians (who have tried both violent and non-violent responses to their brutal occupation) can do to achieve justice on their own.
Neither will it work here for blacks to be treated equally until powerful interests perceive that it is in their best interest for them to do so, regardless of violent or non-violent responses. It may be that violent response will work in this instance, but so far it hasn’t. There has to be a tipping point.
I agree with you completely. There is only really one thing that motivates the United States of America and that is money. It has to cost the US something in order for it to move. We got civil rights and War on Poverty programs because there was violence that was being broadcast to the world. Investors do not like instability. The gov't had to throw out some crumbs to calm the situation so business could go back to usual. It was not "the goodness" of the US govt's heart. It was the well-being of its pocketbook.
ReplyDeleteAmnesty Int. has reported that hundreds of law enforcement officials in the US have been trained by Israeli soldiers and police, inc. in Minneapolis and Baltimore. This training has resulted in some very hurtful, and frequently deadly, tactics now being used by our police: use of tear gas, rubber bullets, and a knee on the neck. All have been used with impunity by Israel police and soldiers on Palestinians, with no regard for human rights. The question is: do we want to allow these same tactics to be used here? I believe the answer is no. This means that our police will have to be retrained, so as to be assured that such tactics will not be tolerated against fellow Americans. Another factor to consider is that there is a deficit of people applying for police jobs, to the point where the standards have been lowered, thus opening the door to people who might have an ax to grind. (Please Google this, as some of you will probably not believe it; there is much more information available.
ReplyDeleteI kept on wondering what would emerge if these folks could all see each other's ideas)
ReplyDeletewaterproof garden lights